1. In the Print dialog box, select Advanced.
If normal print settings don’t produce the results you expect, you may need to specify options in the Advanced Print Setup dialog box. For example, if your printed output doesn’t match the document’s onscreen appearance, you may need to try printing the document as an image (PostScript printers only). Or, if a PDF uses fonts that aren’t embedded, you must download the fonts to the printer when you print the document.
Other advanced printing options in Acrobat Pro let you add printer marks to your printed output and choose how to handle color.
The Advanced Print Setup dialog box is available for PostScript and non-PostScript printers.
1. In the Print dialog box, select Advanced.
To learn more about an option, select it. A description appears at the bottom of the dialog box.
2. Set options, and then select OK.
Acrobat sets the PostScript level automatically, based on the selected printer.
Print settings are preserved until you change them. When you change an option, the Settings value automatically updates from Acrobat Default to Custom, and the new settings are preserved. You can also save custom settings using a unique name.
1. In the Print dialog box, select Advanced.
2. If a custom printer settings file exists with the settings you want, choose it from the Settings menu. Otherwise, choose Acrobat Default.
To learn more about an option, select it. A description of it appears at the bottom of the dialog box.
3. If normal printing doesn’t produce the desired results, select Print As Image and choose a resolution from the drop-down list.
Some options in the general Print dialog box affect settings in the Advanced Print Setup dialog box. For example, selecting the Print Color As Black option (Windows) affects color settings in Advanced Print Setup.
Set color and other output conditions. See Output.
Set options for printer marks. See Marks and Bleeds.
Set options for PostScript printers. See PostScript Options.
Acrobat sets the PostScript level automatically, based on the selected printer.
5. To save the settings using a unique name, click Save As, specify a filename, and select OK.
6. Select OK to accept the settings and return to the Print dialog box.
Use the PostScript Options panel of the Advanced Print Setup dialog box to set options for a particular PostScript printer. These options include how to handle nonresident printer fonts and whether to download Asian fonts. If a PDF contains device-dependent settings, such as halftones and transfer functions, these settings can be sent in the PostScript output to override the default settings in the printer. To use these options, you must be connected to a PostScript printer or have a PostScript printer driver installed with a PPD file selected.
Font And Resource Policy Specifies how fonts and resources in the document are sent to a printer when those fonts and resources aren’t present on the printer.
Send At Start Downloads all fonts and resources at the start of the print job. The fonts and resources remain on the printer until the job has finished printing. This option is the fastest but uses the most printer memory.
Send By Range Downloads fonts and resources before printing the first page that uses them, and then discards them when they are no longer needed. This option uses less printer memory. However, if a PostScript processor reorders the pages later in the workflow, the font downloading can be incorrect, resulting in missing fonts. This option does not work with some printers.
Send For Each Page Downloads all fonts and resources for a given page before the page prints, and then discards the fonts when the page has finished printing. This option uses the least printer memory.
Print Method (Acrobat Pro) Specifies the level of PostScript to generate for the pages. Choose the level of PostScript appropriate for your printer.
Language (Acrobat Pro) Specifies the level of PostScript to generate for the pages. Choose the level of PostScript appropriate for your printer.
Download Asian Fonts Prints documents with Asian fonts that aren’t installed on the printer or embedded in the PDF. The Asian fonts must be present on the system.
Emit Undercolor Removal/Black Generation (Acrobat Pro) Black Generation calculates the amount of black to be used when reproducing a particular color. Undercolor removal (UCR) reduces cyan, magenta, and yellow components to compensate for the black added by the black generation. Because it uses less ink, UCR is used for newsprint and uncoated stock.
Emit Halftones (Acrobat Pro) Allows you to emit the embedded halftones instead of using the halftones in the output device. Halftone information controls how much ink is deposited at a specific location on the paper. Varying the dot size and density creates the illusion of variations of gray or continuous color. For a CMYK image, four halftone screens are used: one for each ink used in the printing process.
Emit Transfer Functions (Acrobat Pro) Emits embedded transfer functions. Transfer functions are traditionally used to compensate for dot gain or dot loss that occurs when an image is transferred to film. Dot gain occurs when the ink dots that make up a printed image are larger (for example, due to spreading on paper) than in the halftone screen. Dot loss occurs when the dots print smaller. With this option, the transfer functions are applied to the file when the file is output.
Emit Flatness (Acrobat Pro) allows you to use the flatness value of the PDF if the PDF already has flatness settings. If the PDF doesn’t have any flatness settings, Acrobat controls it for the PostScript printing. The flatness value sets the limit for how much Acrobat can approximate a curve.
Emit PS Form Objects (Acrobat Pro) Emits PostScript form objects for Form XObjects within the PDF. Selecting this option reduces the overall size of the print job, but it could increase the printer memory that is used. A form XObject is a container of graphics objects (including path objects, text objects, and sampled images) within the PDF. Form XObjects create a single description for complex objects that can appear many times in a single document, such as background images or company logos.
Discolored background correction Prevents printing problems like red boxes over graphics, or pages printing mirrored or upside down. These problems can occur when Acrobat or Reader cannot use the default Color Rendering Dictionaries (CRDs) on some PostScript printers.
Always use host collation (Acrobat Pro) Specifies if you want Acrobat to always use host collation for printing without checking the printer driver. Acrobat uses printer collation by default. Printer collation sends the print jobs separately to the printer and allows the printer to figure out how to collate the pages. For example if you send out two copies of a two page job, the printer receives two jobs of two pages. Host collation figures out how to collate the pages in Acrobat and then sends that job to the printer. For example if you send out two copies of a two page job, the printer receives a single rearranged job of four pages.
Print As Image Prints pages as bitmap images. Select this option if normal printing doesn’t produce the desired results, and specify a resolution. This option is available only for PostScript printers.
Select the Download Asian Fonts option in the Advanced Print Setup dialog box if you want to print a PDF with Asian fonts that aren’t installed on the printer or embedded in the document. Embedded fonts are downloaded whether or not this option is selected. You can use this option with a PostScript Level 2 or higher printer. To make Asian fonts available for downloading to a printer, be sure you have downloaded the fonts to your computer using the Custom or Complete installation option during installation of Acrobat.
If Download Asian Fonts is not selected, the PDF prints correctly only if the referenced fonts are installed on the printer. If the printer has similar fonts, the printer substitutes those. If there are no suitable fonts on the printer, Courier is used for the text.
If Download Asian Fonts does not produce the results you want, print the PDF as a bitmap image. Printing a document as an image may take longer than using a substituted printer font.
Some fonts cannot be downloaded to a printer, either because the font is a bitmap or because font embedding is restricted in that document. In these cases, a substitute font is used for printing, and the printed output may not match the screen display.
Use the Output panel of the Advanced Print Setup dialog box to set output options.
Color Presents composite and separations options. Other options become available in the Output panel depending on your selection in this menu. For more information about color composite and separations, see Printing color.
Flip Specifies if the orientation of the page on the media. Flip horizontal for wrong-reading documents, flip vertical to change vertical orientation. This option is only enabled for separations and disabled for composites.
Negative Select this option to print the document reversed. For example, black appears as white on the resulting output. This option is only enabled for separations and disabled for composites.
Screening Specifies the lines per inch (lpi) and dots per inch (dpi) combinations.
Trapping Specifies if trapping is off. Click Trap Presets to manage trapping presets.
Transparency Flattener Preset Flattens transparent objects according to the preset you choose.
Simulate Overprinting Simulates the effects of overprinting spot inks in composite output and converts spot colors to process colors for printing; the document itself is unchanged. This option is useful for printing devices that don’t support overprinting and is available only if you choose Composite from the Color menu. If you intend to use a file for separations on a RIP (raster image processor) or for final output, don’t select this option.
When printing to a printer that supports overprinting, make sure that this option is unselected, so the native overprinting capabilities of the printer are used.
Use Maximum Available JPEG2000 Image Resolution Controls how resolution progression information, if present, is used when generating PostScript. When selected, the maximum resolution data contained in the image is used. When unselected, the resolution data is consistent with the resolution settings on the Transparency Flattening panel.
Ink Manager Modifies the way inks are treated while the current PDF is open. See Ink Manager overview.